KSN News: Stick to Facts, Not Ideology

On a rainy night in May 2012, a coalition of musicians, scientists and activists gathered in Albany on the Governor's front doorstep, calling for a ban on hydraulic fracturing.

With the news that Governor Andrew Cuomo might lift the moratorium on fracking in New York any day, the event was assembled in less than a month. The goal of the varied participants was to explain in clear terms the environmental, economic and health risks of fracking and to motivate people to rise up against the practice using a diverse combination of impressive music and inspiring message.

The film that resulted from the night — a unique blend of "The Last Waltz" and "An Inconvenient Truth" — was written and directed by Jon Bowermaster and filmed under the direction of Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney. It documents the diverse coalition of citizens, musicians and scientists fighting for a state ban on fracking, highlighting their advocacy at the State Capitol earlier this year. The stars of the night included Mark Ruffalo and Melissa Leo, environmental biologist Sandra Steingraber and a long list of musicians that included Natalie Merchant, Joan Osborne, Dan Zanes, the Felice Brothers, Citizen Cope, Medeski Martin & Wood, the Horse Flies and many more. It has been widely praised and recently won the Best Film on Climate Change Award at the Wild & Scenic Environmental Film Festival.

NBC affiliate KSN News in Wichita, Kansas recently called Food & Water Watch and Friends of the Earth “extremist” organizations in a news segment on our recent legal challenge to the EPA on pollution trading. We expect this characterization of public interest organizations by some members of the blogosphere, but not from a reputable mainstream news outlet. News programs shouldn’t allow their journalists to contribute unsubstantiated claims and ideological language to objective, fact-based news reports. We're tired of being described as extreme for trying to prevent corporate abuse of public resources, and we think it’s important to hold our news organizations to a higher standard of journalistic ethics.

Join us in thanking KSN News for airing a retraction on their story calling Food & Water Watch extremists.

Food & Water Watch works to ensure the food, water and fish we consume is safe, accessible and sustainable. So we can all enjoy and trust in what we eat and drink, we help people take charge of where their food comes from, keep clean, affordable, public tap water flowing freely to our homes, protect the environmental quality of oceans, force government to do its job protecting citizens, and educate about the importance of keeping shared resources under public control.